and it bleeds into where you resist
by MadameProngs10
Summary: Even Karen knows not to ask Charlie about the Games. A BSC/Hunger Games crossover.


**Notes:** This is a Hunger Games/BSC crossover written for isabelquinn for fandom_stocking at Dreamwidth. Many thanks to meroure for the beta, without whom I could not function. Also thanks to ozqueen, for the general squee and reassurance and support. Apparently I'm a mess when I'm writing fic.

Title taken from "Spring Haze" by Tori Amos.

* * *

Even Karen knows not to ask Charlie about the Games.

* * *

She watched the broadcast on TV like everyone else, peeked at the screen through her father's fingers, too shocked to look away. Ten years have passed, but some events are too horrific to wipe from memory.

In the nights before the reaping, she dreams of her step-brother cutting down his opponents with an axe, one by one. Pushing that boy, the strong one with wavy blonde hair and angular features and a smirk on his pale lips, off a cliff and into a sea of blood.

* * *

The thing is, Charlie's name was never called at the reaping.

"Sam Thomas," Madeleine Prezzioso announced, the lady from the Capitol with a sharp suit and a smile like poison.

* * *

Karen liked Charlie better than Sam, who once chased her around the yard with a dead squirrel and liked to yank on her braids.

"Why?" she asked. Unlike everyone else, she wasn't crying. She was looking up at him with wide, shocked eyes. "You could have stayed here."

"I didn't have a choice," Charlie's voice was level, but he gave Karen a tight smile. "I'll see you around, kiddo."

Then he told Sam to take care of everyone, ruffled David Michael's hair, punched Kristy's shoulder, and kissed his mother on the cheek before the Peacekeepers whisked him away and onto the train.

_But you did have a choice_, Karen thought.

* * *

Karen has a sense of self-preservation, is all.

If there's anything she's learned from living under the Capitol's reign, it's that everyone has to look out for themselves.

* * *

Sean Addison was reaped three years ago, a tall blonde boy built like an ox. He scored a ten at the Training Center evaluations, and then made it far in the competition with a box of matches and a can of gasoline sent by his sponsors. That is, until his own game ended in flames.

Karen didn't know Sean, but she heard his sister's screams as the cannon sounded.

Charlie was given the task of mentoring Sean, and many other fallen District Six tributes. He may have survived his Games, but he didn't win. Karen would be a fool not to notice the way Charlie's eyes go empty when the Games are mentioned, the way he whips around like he's ready to fight to the death when someone takes him by surprise.

Everyone loses the Games.

* * *

"How many times was your name entered this year?" Nancy asks, breaking a small loaf of bread in three pieces and distributing it among her friends. She's biting on her lower lip and avoiding the stares of her friends.

Karen is lucky because the Reaping is just before her eighteenth birthday, which means her name is only entered six times. She didn't apply for tesserae—between Charlie's winnings and her father's business, their family is doing more than fine—but some of her friends aren't as lucky.

"Six," she says, as Hannah says seven. "What about you?"

"Fifteen," Nancy replies quietly, gaze never leaving the table.

It's not surprising, really. Nancy's family can barely afford to eat, since her father left and her mother grew ill. Karen knows from Kristy that Mimi treats Mrs. Dawes for free, but Nancy and her brother refuse most other help.

"I heard Bobby Gianelli put his name in thirty-five times this year," Hannah places a hand on Nancy's arm, like this information is supposed to make her friend feel better. "I'm sure there are others like him. There's no way you'll be picked."

Karen doesn't say anything as Hannah and Nancy whisper about their fears and uncertainties, as if speaking any louder will increase their possibilities of misfortune.

"I have to go," Karen says, standing from her chair and smoothing her skirt. "Emily Michelle wants me to help pick out her dress."

She's never had much patience or talent for consoling others.

* * *

Most of her friends and family laugh off her behavior as "oh that's just Karen, she doesn't mean it," but some of her classmates at school accuse her of being self absorbed.

"Well, yeah, because I'm _fabulous_," Karen agrees with a grin, twirls a strand of blonde hair around her finger. "Don't you wish you could be as fabulous as me?"

"I don't deal with emotional people," she rolled her eyes at Andrew once, three or four years ago, when he asked a question about their mother.

David Michael came to Andrew's defense and called her cold-hearted, and—-

"Have a cookie." She tossed him a Snickerdoodle without looking up from her homework, dotting her i's with extra force. "You're accusatory when you're hungry."

Andrew hasn't tried opening up to her since.

* * *

It's not that Karen is immune to others' emotions; she just doesn't want to offer false hope.

The truth is, Karen knows as well as anyone that life in Panem is anything but pleasant.

She'd rather not waste time and energy thinking about it all.

* * *

The Peacekeepers set one of the local factories on fire several years ago, because the workers failed to meet their quotas.

Karen still has nightmares about the day she was told her mother was dead. Even worse, sometimes she has dreams that her mother is alive-but then she wakes up and her mother isn't there.

Talking about her mother only makes the pain worse. Crying for her mother doesn't bring her back.

* * *

Pamela Harding won the Games last year, making her the first female victor from District Six since Rachel Goldberg won nearly thirty years ago. She flirted with the Careers at the Cornucopia, those bigger and stronger than her who thought they could snap her neck at any point down the road, and made them underestimate her.

Then, when only five tributes remained, she dipped her dagger in poisonous sap from a mutated tree and stabbed her opponents in the back. Cliche, but effective.

Karen almost hates her, until she remembers how Pamela's only real ally was injured hours into the competition, when a tribute from District Two got him in the side with a well-placed spear. She made a tourniquet with her issued jacket and scooped water into his mouth with a leaf until his body finally gave out. She let him sink into the ocean, peacefully, carried away by tangles of seaweed.

* * *

_THOMAS-BREWER, EMILY MICHELLE. 12 YEARS OLD._

It's Emily Michelle's first reaping. She's wearing the dress Karen helped pick out, sleek and black with a silver belt at the waist, and her hair is pulled into a bun.

Karen watches her baby sister walk away, pale and clutching Sari Papadakis' hand, and stand near the back of the roped off area with the other twelve-year-old girls. Next to Karen, Hannah is shaking with unshed tears as the Peacekeepers prick her finger.

"Do you think they'll be okay?' she whispers to Karen, jerking her head in the direction of their sisters. "If they call Sari, I'll volunteer for her, but next year I'll be too old and-"

"Try not to worry about it," Nancy says softly, coming up next to them and saving Karen from answering. She gives Hannah a watery smile. "I'm scared too, but there isn't anything we can do."

"I know, but..." Hannah sighs, turning to Karen as they go to take their places among the crowd. "Aren't you scared?"

_Yes_, Karen thinks immediately, scanning the boys' area for Andrew. She spots him between two kids she's never met, pale and looking at the ground with his fists clenched at his sides. Her stomach flops, then she looks away and somehow manages to smile at her friends.

"Why should I be?" she asks defiantly. "Anything the Capitol can do to me, I can do worse."

* * *

When the girl tribute is called, Hannah nearly faints and Karen feels like she's going to be sick.

"Nancy Dawes," Madeleine Prezzioso announces cheerfully, this time wearing a fluorescent pink dress that matches her hair and a venomous smile.

As Karen watches her best friend walk to what will probably be her death, Charlie stares back at her, expression unreadable.

Karen looks away. She knows how the broadcasts work, how the Capitol likes to show the reactions of the friends and families of the chosen tributes. She refuses to give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

* * *

Nancy never stood a chance. She was too kind and trusting; too human. When she had a chance to shoot Gabbie Perkins from District Eight with her bow and arrow, she hesitated.

"I'm glad it's not you," Andrew says softly, as the cannon booms and Karen's heart sinks.

"Yeah," Karen echoes, breaths shallow and face blood-drained, hand resting on her brother's shoulder. She catches herself and removes her touch, swallows, and stands. "Have to go. Elizabeth needs help in the shop."

* * *

"Well, well," Laine Cummings laughs, voicing over the Games footage. A montage of Gabbie Perkins' finest moments are playing on the screen, starting with her tossing knives at Taylor DeWitt in slow motion. "We never saw that coming, did we? Little Gabbie just might turn out to be our youngest victor in decades. Thirteen years old! She's a _prodigy_."

"Definitely, Laine," Sabrina Bouvier's cheerful voice joins in. She takes a moment to pat down her pink curls, and smiles at the camera with abnormally white teeth. "I'd go say far to say that she reminds me of a younger Amanda Delaney. This girl could win it all. I think-"

Karen flicks off the television and falls into bed, body shaking with silent sobs and eyes stinging with tears she refuses to shed.

* * *

Karen doesn't need to ask Charlie about the Games.


End file.
